Hopeful Saints: 1 Kings 17:1-16 - All Saints' Sunday

Due to our busy schedules, my family eats way more fast food than I care to admit. It’s bad for you, and lately, it’s become quite expensive.

Still, I have a rule: always get the fries. If one or more of us does not order fries, they end up regretting it. So does the person who did, because they won’t end up enjoying their full serving.

It’s not that we have a problem with sharing. But when you’re hungry, you’re hungry. And French fries are irresistible.

After reading today’s Scripture, I realize just how blessed we are to enjoy such an abundance of food, as not everyone is so fortunate. 

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The prophet Elijah lived during a time of drought, which had been sent by God to punish King Ahab and the Northern Kingdom of divided Israel for their idolatry and lawlessness. 

Click here to read the Scripture text

Even though Elijah had not committed these sins, the drought affected him all the same. God commanded Elijah to hide himself by the Cherith stream. There, ravens brought Elijah his food. But the water soon dried up. So, God commands Elijah to find a widow in Zarephath, who will feed him.

Sure enough, Elijah goes and finds her, gathering sticks, just as God said. Elijah asks her for water and bread. But she only has enough meal and oil for her to prepare one last meal for herself and her son before they die.

But Elijah assures her that if she gives him food, her meal and oil will not run out until the drought ends.

At this point, I’m wondering how exactly Elijah felt asking a starving widow to take food from her son’s mouth and give it to him. If my wife and daughter were starving, I wouldn’t give the last of their food to a stranger. But this widow does. Why?

Keep in mind that she was not a Jew. Zarephath was part of Phoenicia, a nation that worshiped Ba’al, the same false god Ahab and the Israelites were worshiping.

Essentially, God’s own people weren’t listening to God’s Word. But the widow of Zarephath was. She believed the words of a prophet of the God she’d never heard of. In that moment of desperation, she lets go. She casts herself and her son into God’s hands. That meager faith, born in desperation, was enough for God to show her and her son who he is. She trusts God be faithful. And God is.

This is what it means to be a saint: to choose hope over despair, to cast yourself into God’s mercies, to trust God to do the impossible.

But that’s seldom as easy as it looks.

Much of the time, we don’t need God, because we are in control. We have order, security, and predictability in our lives. There’s nothing we face that we can’t handle.

But what happens when it’s all too much for you? When you lose control? When you cannot help yourself?

We hate helplessness. We hate dependency. We hate not being in control.

In many ways, helplessness feels like dying. This is why, when you find yourself facing the unthinkable, your response to it mimics the classic stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. The depression stage, I believe, is when rock bottom, because you know there’s nothing you can do to make things better. This is where we find the widow. Thankfully, this is also when God shows up.

This is when you must let go. This is when you must choose between hope or despair—and hope will always be the path of most resistance, because you’re not in control. You are moving forward into the unknown. You must do what common sense tells you that you cannot do. You do not know what the outcomes of your strivings will be. In the case of the widow, you are giving away what you cannot afford to lose.

Most of us are stuck in our faith journeys because we love Jesus but insist on going our own way. The most painful blessing you will ever receive is to become so destitute that you cannot help yourself. This is when you let go and let God be God, or you give in to despair.

When I think about the saints we celebrate today, I know that they were not perfect, and that their lives were not problem-free. But I celebrate what God accomplished in their lives, which has made my life better, made our church better, and the world better, too. I’m celebrating the righteousness that was given to them through the forgiveness of their sins,. I’m celebrating their testimonies of how God delivered them through their trials. I’m celebrating that when they were at their life’s end, how God illuminated their faith so that they greeted death with eagerness and hope. God’s promises were the light at the end of this tunnel we call death.

These saints who trusted in the Lord did not trust him in vain. You will not either if you live by their example and embrace the hope that is yours in Christ Jesus.

Stop trying to prove how strong you are. Stop trying to control the uncontrollable. Embrace your helplessness. Receive the freedom of surrender. Choose hope. Cast yourself into God’s mercies. Trust God to do the impossible. Be the saint you are redeemed to become.